Equestria 1939 - Weird World War

Equestria 1939 - Weird World War
The Imitation Game

“Warsaw surrenders to German forces.”
— BBC Radio, September 27, 1939

EX17 = 6793747569390123725
EX17 = ENIGMA Y/N?
RESULT = N
RECOMP Y/N? Y
EN SEED =

"It's impossible!" Sherbert Lemon slammed one hoof down on the table, which made the maze of wires, crystals, and spinning wheels jump. It was supposed to be a draft logical model of the German Enigma machine, or at least able to be configured into whatever they determined was the machine’s final configuration once they had a breakthrough. Herman Guttman had gone back to his apartment for well-needed sleep hours ago, and night was threatening to become day in short order with no more progress than when they had put together the final design and attached it to ACACD for trials.

"Nothing matches up at all and this is the…” Sherbert glanced up through blurry eyes at the chalkboards that stretched across most of the lab, with little space to write more formulas. “How many hundred tests have we run without even a hint of a solution, Mother?"

ACACD and her column of spinning crystal disks did not answer. Over a thousand thin films of pure crystal marked on each side with runes and formulae rotated quietly in their mineral oil bath, making intermittent contacts that caused flickers of light to strobe in patterns against the dark ceiling. Sherbert gave the thaumaturgic mechanism of their test decoder another brief charge of magic, then began to peck out another of many failures on the teletype connected to it, making more characters appear on the paper already scrolling out of the platen, into the overstuffed box, and across the floor;

The discs began to spin more rapidly, making whirls of light spin and dance around the ceiling of the darkened government laboratory while Sherbert rested her horn against the top of the Plexiglas container and wept in frustration. "Come on, mama," she whispered through her tears. "Your baby needs this, mom. I haven't slept in a week. It's just a German toy, not even a tiny fraction as complicated as you are. Oh, horseapples," she muttered as she opened one eye and saw that the CANCEL key on the teletype had gotten nudged, wiping out the seed number she had input before hitting RETURN. "Fifty-seven bucking minutes of runtime blown to toothpicks before I can try the next iteration of—" ignoring the tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks, Sherbert squinted at the darkened chalkboard by flickering hornlight "—eight-hundred and twelve."

She rested her forehead against the cool metal of the device and felt the trickle of tears flow down her face until they vanished into the swirling pools of purified mineral oil in the open reserve tank below. The fluid fed into the thick cylinder of enchanted disks mere millimeters apart while they independently spun, making contacts with other disks until thaumaturgic theory produced an answer that thousands of unicorns flipping thousands of abacuses for thousands of years would be unable to match.

The low thrum of its action was like the heartbeat of the foal she was never going to have, and the tick-tick-tick of the teletype was the cry of an infant, yanking her out of the tranquilized state Sherbert had faded into. She looked at the teletype, then took off her reading glasses with her magic and rubbed her damp eyes.

CALC COMP ENIGMA = ENIGMA
SOLUTION DETERMINED DUP ENIGMA DEVICE WITH SPELL
SOLUTION COMPLETE STOP

Sherbert looked at the teletype paper several times, trying to make sense of the nonsense before wadding it up and throwing it into the burn bin. “Mom. Stupid idea. The only Enigma machine within hundreds of miles is in their submarine out in the harbor, and the Germans guard it like a vault. I might as well be trying to rob a bank.”

The teletype whirred into action again, typing out one line.

CALC COMP SUB = SUB SOLUTION DETERMINED STEAL ENIGMA DUPLICATE RETURN UNDETECTED OBTAIN ROYAL PARDON FOR CRIME SOLUTION COMPLETE STOP

“Mom!” Sherbert was so tired she could have sworn the reflected light from inside ACACD was making star-patterns on the ceiling of her laboratory, swirling and dancing in the darkness. “I’m not going into a life of crime! I don’t even have a submarine!”

Admittedly, it was possible one of her mother’s old acquaintances had a spare submarine hidden somewhere on a volcanic island, but Sherbert was not about to ask any of them, even if she could get permission to visit whatever prisons they were in this week. While she was thinking, the teletype spun into action again and hammered out a line.

RECRUIT AGENT DEEP MANE USE EQ NAVY SUB STOP

The room faded in and out as Sherbert looked at the paper. It was mostly her mother’s fault that she hated enclosed spaces, or at least any that were enclosed more than a laboratory, but sending a spy in a submarine out into the harbor to steal a machine… Was less crazy than anything else they had thought up so far.

“K, mom.” Sherbert rested her head on the desk, trying to fight off the darkness which threatened to overwhelm her willpower. “I’ll suggest it to Prime tomorrow after I sleep.”

Before she could take another breath, the teletype hammered to the end of several lines again, and Sherbert stared at the printout with wide eyes before giving out a hysterical chuckle that just bubbled out from between clenched teeth. "No," she stated quite firmly. "Absolutely not."

GO TO PRIME NOW REPEAT NOW STOP REQUEST PRIORITY NIGHTMARE STOP RECRUIT DEEP MANE FIRST THING AM STOP
SLEEP WITH MAKE FOALS NOT GETTING YOUNGER STOP END

The Manehattan social scene revolved around quite a few humans, mostly because that was as far into Equestria as they were permitted to travel. There had been a few exceptions for exceptional humans over the years, but most human residents who were permanent or temporary residents liked where they were, and did not want to risk sudden eviction to Europe or America by crossing the line. That left influential ponies who wanted to rub metaphorical elbows with influential humans only one place to rub without getting arrested.

With tourism at a low ebb due to the ‘unpleasantness’ in Europe, the reduced population of humans threw themselves even harder into mingling occasions among themselves to socialize and fish for information in fairly equal amounts. Likewise, the ethnicity and national origin of each two-legged attendee was a touchy subject, leaving several parties to abruptly disband when talk turned to the forbidden topic of politics and the inevitable fistfights were about to commence.

Sherbert Lemon had never attended a party that did not involve a birthday cake and several uneasy foals around the punch bowl. Here, they passed the drinks out to anypony walking by. Her first instinct was to finish it off so she could continue her search, only to have the next servant passing by exchange her empty glass for a full one. About the fourth or fifth, she twigged to the concept of carrying the glass without sampling from it, thus preventing endless refills and probably alcohol poisoning.

The only reason she was here was the way Prime had approved her pre-dawn request with a rather cryptic response that she had not understood at all, which roughly paralleled her recent experiences in her lab. He had listened to her request despite the lateness (or earliness) of the hour, instructed her to attend this party, and dismissed her from the office for the few hours remaining before it started so she had no excuse to retreat back to her laboratory and ‘accidentally’ miss her assignment.

The brief nap she managed before the party had been filled with questions, dreams of numbers sweeping her up in an ocean of confusion, and a world that no longer made logical sense. Her alarm clock had not resolved her dilemma, and she was not seeing anypony in the gathering that promised to enlighten her one lux. Thankfully, there was one human she recognized among the dozens, giving her a conversational edge to occupy her time with something other than alcohol consumption.

“Mister John Jacob Astor,” she said, approaching the old gangly man who was holding up a doorway with a drink in his hand. “Our condolences on the recent passing of your wife.”

The tall human nodded his head, but paid her little more attention.

“I read your book,” continued Sherbert. “Despite the obvious errors regarding the planets Jupiter and Saturn, it was… entertaining. I have an annotated copy among my things, if you would care to issue a corrected edition.”

That seemed to draw his attention away from wherever the old man had been. “Beg pardon?” he asked. “I did not catch your name, young miss.”

“Sherbert J Lemon,” she responded. “I already know you. John Astor the Fourth. You funded some of my mother’s projects through a small foundation, although I doubt if you were informed of every little—”

“Lady Voltage,” he said abruptly. “I remember reading that she had a daughter. You have my condolences. Her death was a great loss to the scientific community.”

“Well… Yes.” Sherbert shifted uncomfortably. The drinks were making her tongue thick and the room feel distant, which was a new and novel feeling. That did not make it feel good, but she was unable to maintain her normal aloofness. There was no real way for her to ask a human if there was an Equestrian secret agent at the party, but she had no clue on how to identify Agent Deep Mane other than random chance and time. She settled for an attempt at small talk. “I was born on the day the Titanic sank.”

“Oh.” The human made a small motion with his drink, which Sherbert noticed was nearly full to the rim. “Then you are slightly older than my son, John. Our family owes you Equestrians a substantial debt for our rescue, which I fear may never be repaid.”

“Perhaps when you pay it off, you can purchase another name for your children other than John,” responded Sherbert almost reflexively. At first, she thought it was a horrible gaffe, but the old man hesitated, then chuckled into his hand.

“Perhaps,” he managed from between his fingers. “Equestria has been rather reluctant to export much of its natural wealth, to the great frustration of many people of all nations. Humanity could use a few more prominent people with your kinds of names. Sherbert, for example, and… What does the J stand for?”

“J,” said Sherbert, who had turned to look at an approaching waiter with a tray of drinks floating behind him in a pale yellow magical field. All of the waiters at the party had been well-trained and attentive, but there was something… off about him. For just a flash of an instant, she was certain he was Prime in some sort of disguise, but she had just seen him a few hours ago and it would have taken a week or two in a spa to make him anywhere near this presentable.

The presumed waiter was too attentive, and too subservient, well-dressed in a perfect outfit with exact creases and precise attention to detail, right down to the coal-black jacket that extended over his rear with a multi-petaled flower embroidered on it. He obviously noticed her interest and slowed as he approached, watching her with bright golden eyes instead of the drink floating by her side.

“May I help you, young miss?”

Later, she would spend considerable time doing the equivalent of beating her head against the wall for what she said. But it slipped out anyway. “I need to see you after your task is completed here, Mister Mane.”

“Who?” The yellowish-orange stallion cocked his head to one side. “My name is Orange Bunting, Ma’am. And we’re not supposed to mingle with guests, so if you’ll excuse me.”

And he was gone, weaving through the guests and distributing drinks as he went.

“Do you know that young stallion?” asked Astor.

“I believe so. Excuse me.” It was less of a request than a statement, because you were supposed to ask to be excused from the presence of a superior or royalty. Despite his rank in the human social structure, Sherbert had no need to ask for his leave when she turned and headed for the front door of the mansion, or to acknowledge the relatively unimpressed footman who had examined her credentials carefully when she had entered. She moved with brisk strides, leaving her only a little winded when she reached her destination behind the mansion at the servant’s entrance.

If Sherbert were honest with herself, she would have acknowledged her relative lack of stamina was due to her relative lack of strenuous exercise. The least she could have done during her normal days was go down to Room 14a and run on the exercise wheel for the Psychological Conundrum Department, but there were always experiments to run or formula to calculate. As it was, she barely had time to catch her breath before the door in front of her popped open and a pale blue stallion emerged.

She was expecting the chromatic shift, but it had been carried out so well that she hesitated for a split-second, much the same way he did, although she still managed to get her sentence out first.

“Mister Mane, do you have time to discuss—”

“Beg pardon, young miss,” said the immaculate stallion rapidly with a flicker of his bright blue eyes as he looked for an escape route. “You seem to have me confused for somepony else.”

And he was gone, bolting the few lengths necessary to vanish into the stream of ponies flowing by in the street while Sherbert was still turning around. The several drinks she had ingested recently were having a vigorous dispute with her central nervous system, so there was no way she could chase him down. Admittedly, even if she were sober it would have been a difficult chase, and the last thing a secret agent would want is some crazy mare shouting his name while running through a crowd.

All that was left was for Sherbert to return to her laboratory and face ACACD with her failure, or…

* * *

Manehattan was not that large, or at least compared to human cities. Her hooves were contesting the point. She had walked a considerable portion of the evening, first to the docks where she could see the anchored German submarine at the mooring buoy spaced out a bit from the rest of the ships, then after suitable consideration she went to the top of the Chrystlar building to look at the problem from a different perspective. She stubbornly refused to use the elevator until about half-way up, and after a brief pause at a convenient trash can, continued her ascent to where a bit put into the binoculars allowed her two minutes of overhead observation of the German Type VIIB U-boat in greater detail.

It did not help, so she resumed her nocturnal wanderings around the town without any real concrete goal in mind other than burning off alcohol and thinking. One of her goals was accomplished by the time she got back to her apartment and collapsed into bed, but thought was coming up remarkably empty for a mare who dipped a bucket into that well of knowledge on a daily basis.

The next morning dawned vile and painful with a beam of deadly sunlight punching through her sagging venetian blinds and into her watery eyes. It could have been Celestia’s way of reminding Sherbert of her ongoing failures, but she could only blame herself as she was trapped against the bed in exquisite agony, much like a bug on a pin. For several lifetimes, Sherbert tried to light her horn in order to close the slats, but without avail.

“Here.”

Two Bayer aspirin wrapped in a pale yellow magical field bumped up against her nose, followed by her kitchen lead-crystal tumbler filled with lukewarm water. She took, swallowed, and breathed for a short time before the facts of her circumstance soaked into her hangover-impaired mind.

“Agent Mane?” Sherbert intentionally did not look, because if a secret agent were indeed in her tiny one-bedroom apartment, he probably would not appreciate being examined in detail.

“Sherbert J. Lemon,” said the smooth voice again from behind her. “Daughter of Dr. Vernier Voltage, who passed away several years ago in a most peculiar fashion. Oh, yes. I know about your mother. Well, her current incarnation.” There was a quiet breathing as if the speaker were watching intently to see her reactions. “I understand you are currently employed by Q branch on another fascinating project that I’m not privy to, at all. Why are you looking for me?”

“I found you,” corrected Sherbert quietly. “Prime sent me.”

There was a faint rustling of paper, and a section of teletype printout drifted down in front of her nose with the incriminating order from ACACD and one additional line.

GO TO PRIME NOW REPEAT NOW STOP REQUEST PRIORITY NIGHTMARE STOP RECRUIT DEEP MANE FIRST THING AM STOP
SLEEP WITH MAKE FOALS NOT GETTING YOUNGER STOP END

HOOVES OFF THE HARDWARE MANE STOP

“Well, I suppose my mother sent me first,” said Sherbert through clenched teeth with a sense of deep regret for not feeding that piece of paper into the lab shredder. “Prime gave me authority to read you into my project, provided I don’t tell him anything about it until it’s over.”

“Interesting,” mused the voice. “I’ll check with my superiors. If they approve, I’ll meet with you this evening at your laboratory.”

“And… if they don’t approve?” asked Sherbert through the hammers in her head.

There was a long silence and the feeling of eyes carefully examining her before he continued. “Then I think I’ll see you this evening anyway. Good day, young lady.”

If every tiny noise had not triggered explosive pain in her ears, she never would have been able to hear him slip out the door.

* * *

It was late in the afternoon before Sherbert returned to the lab, only to find Guttman working away on the problem in her absence. He had an impressive sheaf of paper accumulated to one side, and a pencil clenched in his teeth much like an earth pony while he erased an entry, but did not look as if he had come up with any brilliant insights about their task either.

She settled down beside him and began working on an incomplete character matrix, the paper version of a metal rotor marked with letters. It was better than nothing, but just barely.

After a time, measured in painful heartbeats felt just behind her temples, Guttman slid a short piece of teletype printout over to her.

HAVE SHERBERT REPORT ON RECRUITMENT AFTER RECOVERING STOP

“I’m not recovered,” said Sherbert bluntly.

Guttman, being a human of great common sense, merely shrugged his shoulders and returned to integrating the cubic matrix he was currently working on. He reached for the noisy Marchant mechanical calculator at the end of his formula, gave Sherbert an evaluating look, then removed a pill bottle from his vest pocket.

“Aspirin?”

Sherbert started to shake her head, decided that was an exceedingly poor idea, and rasped out, “No, thank you. I don’t need it.”

The teletype spun up to speed and hammered out a brief message.

ARE YOU CERTAIN STOP

Once the echoes had died away, she opened one eye to see Guttman with two aspirin in the palm of one hand and a beaker of tepid water in the other, which she took. Showing significant empathy, the human returned to his quiet pencilwork.

An hour or two passed, slow as tar in winter, but she had gotten a certain distance down the chart by the end and decided it was better to get the confession over with while she felt miserable.

“I spoke with… a pony who Prime said might be useful in this endeavor. He will be visiting this evening.”

“A spy or technical expert?” asked Guttman at once.

“Spy.” Sherbert watched as Guttman stood up, stretched with a few subdued popping noises, and turned for the lab door. “Why are you leaving?”

“I am a technical expert, and it is evening.” He picked up several books and put them in his satchel. “I would only get in the way of any spycraft. I will give you and your gentlecolt friend sufficient time to discuss your relationship before I return first thing in the morning.”

“Gentlecolt?” Sherbert could feel her mane begin to stand on end, and her ears flattened regardless of her wishes to appear impassive while Guttman looked for another book.

“You are the very model of a unicorn technical expert,” he continued while searching. “You cannot lie worth a slug bit, and I have several years of Equestrian experience recognizing your kind of reactions in ways that you probably don’t even recognize yourself. Is he handsome?”

“Yes,” she spluttered. “I think. He was disguised and—”

“Unicorn?”

“Of course! I mean…”

“Intelligent?”

“Too much,” she snapped. “He broke into my lab while you were out. Rummaged through our stuff.”

“Und took the book on Platiski’s Disc Connections,” Guttman added with one last look around. Sherbert had to follow suit, and noticed several other books missing as well.

“A spy and a thief,” muttered Sherbert.

“Think about naming one of the foals Agustus,” Guttman said as he opened the door to leave, only to step sideways when confronted by a bearded unicorn janitor outside with a trash cart.

“You’s a secure laboratory, right?” he asked, looking at a clipboard held in his pale blue magic. “We gots a burn bag if’n you got trash.”

“No, we’re fine,” said Guttman, giving a glance over his shoulder. “Sherbert?”

She did not say anything at first, which made Guttman hesitate. “Spy?” he asked.

“Spy,” she said.

“Bye,” he responded, heading down the corridor and back to his apartment for the evening.

Sherbert eyed the ‘janitor’ suspiciously.

“Hi,” he said in a completely different voice. “May I come in?”

“Again?” she asked. “Could I stop you if I wanted, Agent Mane?”

“Do you want to?” he asked right back at her, peeling the beard off and sticking it into one of the pockets in his coveralls.

She opened the door the rest of the way, then closed it after he strolled inside and made himself comfortable on a lab stool with a canapé that she swore she had last seen on a tray at the party.

“Have you decided to help me?” Sherbert opened the lab refrigerator and pushed several chemical experiments to one side so she could get out some leftovers. “The cafeteria had spinach casserole yesterday. Would you like some?”

“A bribe?” The unknown stallion swept up the glass container and peered inside before picking up the fork Sherbert floated over to him.

“Food. Since you’re stealing snacks from parties, and you’re still skinny, you burn a lot of calories. I’ve never seen you slow down, so you don’t eat right.” Sherbert paused, then closed her eyes. “I’m turning into my mother. Or my brother.”

Mane did not answer right away because he was chewing.

“Obviously, you’re not a changeling,” mused Sherbert mostly to herself.

“Why not?” asked Mane, scooping up one of the last forkfuls of spinach casserole.

“The casserole is laced with a poison deadly to changelings.”

Mane stopped chewing for a moment. “Really?”

“No, I just wanted to see if you were a changeling with the way you change identities so quickly.”

The stallion paused, then deliberately put his fork into the depleted casserole, removed the last bite, and finished it off with a wry look. Once he had finished chewing and swallowing, he added, “You’re a dangerous mare. Are you sure you don’t want to go into the spy business?”

“Do spies ever learn what it is they are stealing or taking photos of?” she retorted. “I do. I am a scientist. I take puzzles of life and chemistry, break them down, and solve them. I receive answers to my questions.”

Mane regarded the empty casserole bowl for a long time without putting it into the sink. “Sometimes, you don’t want to know. Root Stock was a friend of yours, yes?”

“We are scientific colleagues,” admitted Sherbert, puzzled over the sudden change of conversational direction.

“Then someday I may tell you,” he continued cryptically. “My career as a European spy is fairly well over for the time being. Perhaps I’ll go back when things calm down, or go into the theatre instead. But for now, you’ve seduced me with your gourmet meal—” he put the empty glass bowl and fork into the sink where it belonged “—and feminine wiles. Agent J has a nice ring to it, I suppose. What secret mission are you recruiting me for?”